So, structurefall considers it a point of pride that his musical taste and discoveries are consistently ten years in the past (to the point that it's very much a self-fulfilling prophecy.) Anyway, yesterday he was telling this story yet again, and said "Why, now that I'm up to 1997, I'm even starting to appreciate futurepoop!" By which he meant progressive-house bullshit like VNV Nation.

I started only-semi-coherently ranting at that point, and if he wasn't driving I probably would have grabbed and shaken him.

Anyway, at that point I rattled off a list of bands from 1997 that he should be listening to instead of that recycled lukewarm pabulum. I think most of what I shouted out was actually from 1996 or 1998, but when I got home, I spent ten minutes making a list.

In fact, yes, I did put this off until almost the last possible moment.

In only approximate order of favoriteness, here is my year-end wrap-up. As in previous years, a few of the entries on the following list were released earlier than 2007, but that is when I discovered them, so I'm allowing a little slack. In 2007, I acquired roughly the same amount of new music as I did last year: around 160 new-ish albums, and a similar number of older releases.

You've heard tracks by, I believe, all but three of these bands on the jwz mixtapes so far.

As you have probably figured out by now, I am a huge, huge Shriekback fan, and this latest album is one of their best. "Amaryllis in the Sprawl" in particular is one of the best songs they've ever done.

Last year's best band name was "I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness", and this year that title goes to "Say Hi To Your Mom". That aside, these are great albums. I love the guy's voice. They're mostly mellow, sweet-sounding songs about goofy topics like video games, space ships and vampires. Even though the lyrics are really funny, it doesn't come off as a joke: it sounds like he really cares that she beat his high score.

So, these are an EP and a couple of singles, which don't quite add up to a full album, but I love them so much they make the list anyway, especially for the song "Fuji". They're kind of trip-hoppy, I guess. They have a couple of full-length albums out, but I haven't managed to get my hands on them yet.

This album sort of oscillates between a Luscious Jackson-style hip-hoppy electronic indie rock, and Tegan & Sara-ish acoustic tracks. The lyrics are lewd and funny. (You should listen to them despite the fact that I am crappy at describing bands.)

Well, it's been nine years since the last Photek album, "Form & Function Vol 1", and this one's better! It's very dark drum-and-bass, mostly. This is nice, because I wasn't aware that anyone was still making this kind of thing.

A female-fronted metal band with sort of a carnival feel to a lot of their songs. The stand-out here is "Push Button". I think I'd like this album more if their approach to the carnival thing reminded me more of, say, Oingo Boingo, and less of Marilyn Manson.

Deaf parents should be allowed to screen their embryos so they can pick a deaf child over one that has all its senses intact, according to the chief executive of the Royal National Institute for Deaf and Hard of Hearing People (RNID).

Ballard's stance is likely to be welcomed by other deaf organisations, including the British Deaf Association (BDA), which is campaigning to amend government legislation to allow the creation of babies with disabilities.

A clause in the Human Tissue and Embryos Bill, which is passing through the House of Lords, would make it illegal for parents undergoing embryo screening to choose an embryo with an abnormality if healthy embryos exist. [...] Disability charities say this makes the proposed legislation discriminatory, because it gives parents the right to create "designer babies" free from genetic conditions while banning couples from deliberately creating a baby with a disability.

The monkeys were deprived of sleep for 30 to 36 hours and then given either orexin A or a saline placebo before taking standard cognitive tests. The monkeys given orexin A in a nasal spray scored about the same as alert monkeys, while the saline-control group was severely impaired.

The study, published in the Dec. 26 edition of The Journal of Neuroscience, found orexin A not only restored monkeys' cognitive abilities but made their brains look "awake" in PET scans.

Siegel said that orexin A is unique in that it only had an impact on sleepy monkeys, not alert ones, and that it is "specific in reversing the effects of sleepiness" without other impacts on the brain.

The research follows the discovery by Siegel that the absence of orexin A appears to cause narcolepsy. That finding pointed to a major role for the peptide's absence in causing sleepiness. It stood to reason that if the deficit of orexin A makes people sleepy, adding it back into the brain would reduce the effects, said Siegel.

"What we've been doing so far is increasing arousal without dealing with the underlying problem," he said. "If the underlying deficit is a loss of orexin, and it clearly is, then the best treatment would be orexin."